Standing beneath the steeple, playing in the cornfields, learning to be a pastor while trying to faithfully preach the Good News, and the church who loves me anyway.

Holy Spaces and the Efficacy of Prayer

I’m a preacher. I have the privilege of being in holy spaces more often than most people. I have lots of chances to love on people in times of need. But no matter how many times I’m apart of these things, their power never ceases to catch me off guard.

Even though I’m getting used to being caught off guard, I was even more surprised yesterday. Because yesterday, I wasn’t the one doing the praying. I was one of at least four “Reverends” in the room, and my father-in-law and I were pastors getting “pastored”. Sometimes, I think, I forget just how much I’m doing when I stand by someone’s bed and offer a prayer. As a hospital room full of folks who love my mother-in-law gathered around her bed and prayed over her before surgery, I felt the energy in the room change. There was a feeling of power and well-being that was so incredibly pervasive that it still gives me goose bumps. No doubt it was a holy space.

I was surprised by another holy space I found. For an introvert, the idea of a waiting room full of people is not always a welcome thought. I knew that there were nearly twenty people that came just for my mother-in-law, which was amazing in itself. But instead of feeling tired after talking to so many people like I usually do, I think I felt blessed. Not only blessed by all those folks there to support someone I know and love, but blessed also by all those people that I didn’t know. This was a huge surgical waiting area, and it was positively full of families like ours–waiting to hear a word of hope. We had a huge group, but there were several equally large groups. There was laughing and praying and working and coffee drinking, but what I didn’t see was anyone who had the typically anxious looks that come with being in a waiting area. It would be hard to believe that no one in that room was worried. Yet, I think, somehow being in that room with all those people who trusted that their loved one was in God’s hands, changed the energy of all in the room.

As I’ve been teaching Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline, I’ve been trying some of his suggestions. On the subject of prayer, he suggests that one way to “pray without ceasing” is by praying flash prayers over all whom we encounter. The idea is that you “flash” a prayer at them, without even worrying about knowing what to pray for. I did that in the waiting room yesterday, not only for the people in our group, but for everyone else too. I prayed in the same way for the doctors and nurses that I passed, and for the lady in the cafeteria. The strangest thing happened. I kind of felt like Bruce Almighty when he suddenly hears everyone’s prayers. It was like I had a connection to them, and for the briefest of seconds I looked through a window into their lives.

Sue came through the surgery just fine, and the news seems to be good: from what the doctors know right now, it doesn’t look like the cancer has spread. When we were all in the room after the surgeon came to talk, a family friend leaned over to me and said “We’ve all been praying for this. Why in the world are we surprised that it worked?” I told my husband about that on the way home and he said that we were surprised because sometimes our prayers aren’t answered in the ways that we prayed for them to be. But I think the friend was right–perhaps a better idea would be to be surprised that it didn’t “work”. Perhaps we should enter into prayer with the expectation that God will move, as if that’s the rule.

When we told her the good news, Sue cried and kept saying “Thank you, Jesus!” Yeah, no doubt. Thank you that the cancer hasn’t spread. Thank you that so many who love Sue could be there. And Thank You that You hear prayers, even if we can’t quite be bold enough to pray with the certainty that you will move.